I Knew I was Bisexual Before I Knew Bad Things Could Happen

Coming out as bisexual before I even hit puberty didn't just change my childhood—it changed the way I view the world.

I knew I was bisexual at eight years old, drawing boobs in the margins of my assignment notebook. Rather, I knew I liked both boys and girls, but I didn’t have a name for it yet. Later, I would turn to Yahoo! Answers for proof that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. When I found others like me, they called me what I was, and I have been that ever since.  

I came out to a few friends at the start of fifth grade. Around the same time, my elementary school was holding a fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It was the first major tragedy I was old enough to understand. I didn’t know things like that could happen, that real life had the capacity for biblical catastrophes and supervillain circumstances with no hero to save the day. I dropped quarters in my classroom’s collection jar, hoping my tiny good could balance out the bad. 

What I’m saying is that I knew I was bisexual before I knew bad things could happen, and I think that explains a lot. 

“Growing up bi meant growing up kind of lonely…everything and nothing was meant for me.”

I have to hand it to my younger self for all the clever ways she came out: to one friend, a game of hangman; to another, two truths and a lie. Almost everyone took it well enough, and while a friend did say her church believed being gay was a sin, she wasn’t sure of the rules on being half-gay. She’s an atheist now, but I still believe in God. 

As time went on, I ducked in and out of the closet with different friend groups and phases, but if you asked me flat out, I was usually honest. My friends knew, and the guidance counselor, and eventually word got around the sixth grade. At lunch, two girls approached my table to confirm the rumors—Is it true that you’re bisexual? I said yes, and they followed up with a dozen invasive questions before laughing their way back to the popular table. My first dose of shame. I lay low for a bit after that, afraid of being bullied, but mostly of being alone.  

In the early aughts, growing up bi meant growing up kind of lonely. I knew very few queer people (outside of Yahoo! Answers), and the ones I did know were mostly gay boys. I fit in with them far better than I did with the 20+ girls at the sleepovers I eventually stopped getting invited to, but I still floated somewhere in the middle. Everything and nothing was meant for me, which was frustrating, but also full of possibility. I could love anyone and do anything in any permutation. I had a thousand good ideas of how my life might turn out with a wife or a husband or a house full of dogs. I could live in a city with weirdos like me or hole up in a cabin where nothing could touch me. I saw myself as an author or a professor or neither or both. If I could love anyone, couldn't I do anything? Couldn’t I do everything?

Years later, my sister’s high school boyfriend would tease me that bisexuals were just greedy and indecisive. Part of me agreed. I was greedy for all life had to offer me, and I refused to accept that choosing any one path meant leaving the others behind. My Plathian fig tree bore fruit that would never rot, and I would pick it all. Why shouldn’t I?

In that way, being bi has never been only about my sexuality; it was—and is—the lens through which I view my world. It’s the deep knowing that things can be and instead of or. It’s the ability to see every option as good. It’s falling in love with the in between, the middle, the neither and both. Mostly, it is about love. Most things are, at the end of the day. 

If there’s an end to the love that I have to give, I haven’t found it yet. I’ve poured my heart out to both men and women romantically and platonically. I have loved my friends and family with all the time and attention I have to spare and then some. This wild, illimitable love dictates my choices and shades in my favorite memories, like when I drained my bank account to surprise a cross-country friend on his birthday or when I spent half the night DIY-ing a gift for a classmate who seemed down about their parents’ divorce. I live at the end of the extra mile, doing the most even when no one expects me to. If I love you, I love you like that. Why shouldn’t I? 

My whole life has been an echo of that question. Why shouldn’t I love them that way? Why not cuddle with a close friend or make space for an acquaintance to open up? Why not crush on a girl and kiss boys after school? Why shouldn’t I approach this one modest life with a wide open heart? It’s the only way I know how. 

It’s a big love, and it’s gotten me into trouble more than once. I’ve been deeply caring and affectionate with straight male friends who, as a result, assume we’re something more. I’ve given my time and devotion to people who never intended to stay. I’ve been taken advantage of and taken for granted, and it’s made me more careful, but it hasn’t changed the way I love. 

I love the way I love: with my whole heart and all of my resources. I love for a long time and rarely let go. I love the way I was designed to love back before I knew bad things could happen: fearlessly and at least twice as much as most.